Close look at the role that the town will play in helping to shape the future of the beer trade

BURTON, often dubbed the home of brewing, will form a key part of the efforts to boost the industry, which include calls for lower taxes, policies to promote growth and support for partnership and self-regulation.

Fairer taxes are a top priority, with the BBPA calling for further cuts in beer duty, building on the success of the tax cuts in 2012 and 2013, which was successfully lobbied for by Burton's MP Andrew Griffiths.

The BBPA also wants to see more initiatives aimed at reducing the business rates burden for community and high street pubs, and a review of the case for a lower rate of VAT on pub and restaurant meals.

As part of policies to promote a thriving sector, a reduction in regulation is being called for, including a moratorium on new licensing regulation.

There are also calls for innovation that could help the sector as well as communities with ideas such as using pubs as central wifi hubs, as well as a commitment to support the tied pub model, with its low cost of entry for new pub entrepreneurs and businessmen.

Brigid Simmonds, BBPA chief executive, said: "Our focus is on persuading politicians that with the right policies, we can have a thriving sector."

Comments

The British Beer and Pub Association, the mouthpiece of tied pub companies and family brewers is always telling government the problem with pubs is taxes, business rates, beer duty, supermarkets and changing habits when the REAL problem is pubs have been asset stripped by the BBPA's members for the last 25 years and thousands of their pubs are so chronically run down and in need of investment customers have abandoned them for better appointed places like well funded chain run coffee shops,
The solution to the problem of losing pubs in ever greater numbers is to force the pub companies and family brewers to stop fleecing tied publicans with usurious rents (tied rents are higher than open market rents ALMR various benchmarking surveys) and stop them charging tied tenants DOUBLE open market prices for their beer supplies (CAMRA, IPPR et al numerous studies) and STOP the Great British Pubco Scam in its tracks.